


Sounds About Right

by eadunne2



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Typical Violence, College/High School Age, Cuties, Ficlet, Fluff, Jealous Dean, Kissing, Love, M/M, One Shot, Protective Dean, Swearing, friends - Freeform, minimal angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-17
Updated: 2015-11-17
Packaged: 2018-05-02 01:07:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5228075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eadunne2/pseuds/eadunne2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Where’d you get the shiner?” Dean asks, and he doesn’t hear his voice shaking, but Cas does and looks up from his open backpack with curiosity.<br/>“Jeff Bartlett, the usual. He hates gays so much I’m beginning to think he is one.” He smirks at his own joke, soft lips twitching up but wincing where they’re split.<br/>“I didn’t know -” Dean’s voice comes out air and he barely has the presence of mind to try again. He feels so cold. “I thought they just said shit. I didn’t know they hit you.”<br/>Cas looks uncomfortable as he shrugs. “It’s not a big deal, Dean.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sounds About Right

“Where’d you get the shiner?” Dean asks, and he doesn’t hear his voice shaking, but Cas does and looks up from his open backpack with curiosity.

“Jeff Bartlett, the usual. He hates gays so much I’m beginning to think he is one.” He smirks at his own joke, soft lips twitching up but wincing where they’re split.

“I didn’t know -” Dean’s voice comes out air and he barely has the presence of mind to try again. He feels so cold. “I thought they just said shit. I didn’t know they hit you.”

Cas looks uncomfortable as he shrugs. “It’s not a big deal, Dean.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“What could you have done?” he asks sadly. 

What indeed? It’s rude, but Dean leaves, body on autopilot, just walks out the door without a word. 

Bartlett and his friends spend most of their time behind the 7/11 a few blocks from Dean’s parents’ house, so he knows where to find them. Doesn’t bother with insults or threats, just walks right past the peripheral kids and socks Jeff so hard he feels the bones in his hand shift, then swings again. 

“What the fuck, Winchester?” one of the other boys screeches, and Dean doesn’t even turn around when the kid grabs his shoulder, just elbows backwards as hard as he can into the guy’s solar plexus. Dean hears him crumple, but he’s too busy picking Bartlett up by the neck and slamming him roughly against the brick wall.

“Listen,” Dean says, voice low and even and terrifying. “You ever lay a hand on Novak again I’m gonna fuck you up so bad nobody’ll recognize you. You’ll be a walking bruise, and a fucking joke. You want a dick up your ass so damn bad, but you can’t have him. He’s _mine_.” And he drops Jeff onto the pavement, shaking the drips of blood from his hand. They all take off, by foot or on bikes, and it’s over as suddenly as it began.

In the stillness Dean realizes he’s shaking a little but his hand is way less fucked up than he thought, just scraped to hell. Cas is standing on the sidewalk, gaping, though he matches stride with Dean to return to the house.

“What just happened?”

“What did it look like?”

“Uh, you breaking a kid’s nose?”

“Sounds about right.”

They’re silent until safely stowed back in Dean’s room, and he’s cleaning his knuckles with the vodka he keeps under the bed when Cas says, “Why?”

“Why what?” Dean asks, staring at his knuckles and wincing.

“Why did you do that, Dean?” Cas’s voice is so soft from where he’s sitting hunched on the edge of the bed. Dean knows Cas better than himself but there’s no deciphering the look on his face, so he just plops down beside him when it occurs to Dean that he doesn’t have an answer. Or he maybe he does, but it’s not the one either of them wants to hear. He can feel Cas’s gaze where it rests heavy on the side of his face, but he can’t look, can’t bear to see what it’s saying.

Fuck.

He stumbles to his feet and bolts towards the door but Cas is faster, slams it shut and boxes Dean in with his arms.

“Why?” he demands again. From this proximity the black eye is a few different shades. The skin is split, just barely, right at Cas’s cheekbone and it’s causing Dean physical pain to see it, to know that Cas had been suffering and he’d never known, never noticed.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, and before he can stop himself he ghosts a fingertip across the line of bruise above bone. “I should’ve done something sooner.”

“Dean,” Cas shivers, but his voice is irritable as he says, “It is not your job to protect me. I’m a big kid. I can take care of myself.”

“I can’t -” This whole thing is fucking stupid. When he opens his mouth to answer, he realizes there is not even one safe response, just ripping his heart open, and it promptly dawns on him, that ceaseless reality he’d always been too fucking dense to realize before.

He never payed much attention to why he hated all of Cas’s boyfriends, even though most were decent guys. Never thought about how he himself had always dated girls with dark hair and light eyes. Never acknowledged that his nerdy, brilliant, gorgeous best friend was actually the love of his life, and what is he supposed to say? 

Eyebrows creeping up his forehead in shock he claps a hand over his own mouth and mutters, “Oh shit.”

“Dean, WHAT?” Cas roars and Dean drops his hand.

“I’m in love with you.” 

Cas recoils a whole couple of steps, shaking his head then gives a terrible laugh, but Dean’s too stunned. 

“I’m a fucking idiot. How did I never realize? I can’t believe…Oh my god Cas.” He finally looks up and sees Cas looking profoundly uncomfortable, and his heart sinks. “Shit. That was kind of a lot to spring on you, wasn’t it? I’m sorry man, forget I said anything. I just...that shiner...makes me wanna fuckin’ kill somebody.”

Cas nods slowly. “You’re a good friend, Dean.”

He scoffs. “Not that good, apparently, didn’t know you were getting the shit kicked out of you after school, didn’t know I was - ” he stops to glare at the carpet. 

“Are you sure?

“Sure what?”

“About your feelings. For me.” 

Cas is gnawing the split in his lip, his blue eyes huge, one ringed in purple, and even though Dean’s trying not to freak him out, he snaps.

“Of course I’m sure! I’ve loved you since we were seven years old! Oh my god, I fucking hated your boyfriends. On dates I would think, ‘wish I was with Cas.’ Who the fuck thinks about their best friend on a date? I can’t sleep when you’re out of town and when you’re mad at me I want to die and you’re so goddamn beautiful I can’t breathe sometimes when I look at you, especially in the morning -”

He’s cut off by an armful of Cas and warm, soft lips sliding against his own.

Dean doesn’t know how he’s ever lived without this. Cas’s mouth fits against him perfectly, wet silk, and his slender fingers clutching at Dean’s back like a life preserver make him feel genuinely worthy for the first time in a lifetime.

“I’m in love with you too,” Cas mumbles against his mouth, seemingly loathe to put any space between them. Dean’s not complaining.

“Thank fuck,” he whispers back. 

Cas pulls back with a wicked sparkle in his eye, amazingly mischievous considering the shiner and the split lip, beautiful and so fucking brilliant, and grins as he says slowly, “Speaking of which…”


End file.
